1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to RFID tags, more particularly, an apparatus, system, method and computer program storage device for emulating multiple RFID tags in a supply chain/logistics network to create a single interrogator read point.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Increasingly, radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions are being deployed resulting in RFID tags attached to or embedded in all sorts of objects. The main thrust behind this increased deployment of RFID solutions is the electronic product code (EPC) system, which is a family of coding schemes employing RFID technology as an eventual successor to the bar code. More recently, EPC networks have been proposed such as EPCglobal® which is a collection of interrelated RFID standards for hardware, software, and data interfaces networked together with a core service provider to enhance a supply chain to a community of trading partners engaged in the capture, sharing, and discovery of EPC related data.
In operation, an EPC network such as EPCglobal® share information among RFID devices and service providers (e.g. identifying the object and its location) after an RFID reader/interrogator interrogates and identifies an RFID tag. A very limited amount of information is encoded in the RFID tag and different vendors will assign and issue different tags which typically leads to multiple tags on a single object. Accordingly, RFID tags traveling along a supply chain will encountering numerous RFID tag readers/interrogators (read points) throughout their lifetimes.
Referring to FIG. 1A, a conventional interrogator 110 is illustrated interacting with several similar RFID tags attached or embedded in various objects 100. As can be seen in FIG. 1A, an RFID reader (hereafter “interrogator”) 110 is capable of interrogating various objects such as electronic devices having RFID tags 120, coupled to or embedded within the electronic device, such as an mp3 player 130, a laptop computer 140, a PDA 150 and a cellular phone 160. In operation, the interrogator 110 sends an interrogation signal to the RFID tags 120 and receives back a response signal including an ID based upon hard coded information in the RFID tag 120. The interrogator 110 compares the ID to entries in a database (not shown) for identifying the ID tag 120 to a specific object (as well as other information such as location and ultimate destination).
RFID tags 120, as mentioned above are commonly utilized in supply chain networks, for example coupled to or embedded in objects such as a box (not shown) or within the box, a case (not shown) or an entire pallet 170 which may contain multiple boxes. FIG. 1B illustrates a conventional supply chain network where multiple differing types of RFID tags are attached to an object. As can be seen in FIG. 1B, a bottle of wine 172 has a product RFID tag 122 attached at the wine manufacture's site. Product RFID tag 122 is a high frequency (HF) tag (13.56 MHZ, ISO 18000-3), which is attached to every wine bottle 172. The manufacture can also attach a case RFID tag 124 to a case of wine 174. For example, as shown in FIG. 1B, a wine case 174 is cased by six bottles per case and tagged with case RFID tag 124, which is an ultra high frequency (UHF) (900 MHZ, ISO 18000-6B) tag. Moreover, shippers and wholesalers and other intermediates in the supply chain might attach other types of RFID tags to the wine case 174. Later, in the supply chain, wine cases 176 are stacked 27 cases per pallet 170. Each pallet 170 is tagged with a pallet tag 126, such as a UHF (900 MHZ, ISO 18000-6B) RFID tag manufactured by Intermec® (Large Ridged Tag GEN-2-ITO4UOOYTT001A). Each RFID tag described above, the pallet RFID tag 126, the case RFID tag 124, and the product RFID tag 122 may likely only communication with a specific interrogator 110. Hence, at each point of contact in a supply chain network, multiple interrogators 110 would be required in order to have full information on the products on a pallet 170.
In the conventional supply chain network, as shown in the example of FIG. 1E, a single pallet 170 can contain multiple, i.e. hundreds of differing RFID tags. The conventional pallet 170 contains a pallet tag 126 affixed to the pallet itself, twenty-seven cases 176, each contain a case RFID tag 124 (or more depending on whether a shipper or wholesaler added additional RFID tags), and nested within each case 174, are six product RFID tags 122 (27+27*6+1=190 RFID tags). The shear number of differing RFID tags can potentially cause each interrogator 110 to misread a product RFID tag 122, case RFID tag 124 or pallet RFID tag 126 due to RF interference among the differing RFID tags. Also RFID in the conventional supply chain RFID tags likely become damaged due to the harsh conditions of shipping/warehousing, which also cause misreads by the interrogator 110. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to avoiding having to affix more than one RFID tags to an object. Alternatively, it would be highly desirable to avoid having multiple interrogators at each point of access (read point) in a supply chain network.
Having set forth the limitations of the prior art, it is clear that what is required is a method, system or computer program storage device capable of emulating RFID tags for device identification without the necessity of affixing multiple physical RFID tags to devices or reading each individual RFID tag, i.e., for products on a pallet container, or like transport means through a network.